


heart worn habits

by timetrees



Category: Marvel (Comics), Young Avengers (Comics)
Genre: Alcohol, Depression, Drugs, Getting Together, Manic Episode, Marijuana, Mental Health Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-29
Updated: 2018-06-29
Packaged: 2019-05-30 07:36:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15092150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/timetrees/pseuds/timetrees
Summary: “I don’t know what I expected,” Tommy admitted. Maybe he was calmer now. Everything changed so fast, even for him, especially for him.David sat on the couch next to him.“I don’t know,” Tommy repeated.“I get it,” David said.





	heart worn habits

**Author's Note:**

> wow! almost 6k! fun times! some notes before we begin...  
> \- i picture tommy with bipolar disorder here, probably type ii but i'm not entirely sure – this is really the onset of it. i don't personally have bipolar disorder, but i know people who do and i've researched the disorder as well as have lived with depression, anxiety, and other mental health stuff. if anything i wrote here bothers you, feel free to talk it out with me.  
> \- i tried to balance stuff here – i don't want to write thinkfast where david is the only one in control/the one taking care of tommy/whatever, because not only is that disrespectful to his character, it just doesn't seem accurate. this is a fic focused on tommy, which is why the mental health issues are mostly tommy's own, but rest assured this is not all that is happening behind the scenes.  
> \- i haven't read all of david's comics (ive read YA and some of new mutants) but he seems like one of those characters marvel would force into being a straight edge. i (stoner mcstone) hate that so its not true here.

Two week into the new year, Tommy was freaking out.

Tommy didn’t freak out, not normally. For the past three years, he’d gotten in the habit of steeling himself – he went too fast to freak out, to really _feel_ his emotions, to let himself catch up with the world. It was the only way to be.

But since Patri-not took him, things started working differently. Time seemed different around him, acting even weirder and slower or faster than before. It was like he existed outside of time, sometimes, somehow.

He stopped, mid-run, in the middle of New York City, skidding on the pavement before he took the time to look around him. He was still moving at superspeed, even if he was being still, so none of the cars were moving and the New York pigeons moved at a snail’s pace, everyone slow, slow, slow.

And then he was normal speed, a static form just out of the way of the oncoming traffic. New York was full of people yelling at each other from the ground to apartment windows, car horns and depending on where you were, a Spider-Man or, if you were unlucky enough, someone like Iron Man or Captain America or any of the other real, accomplished, intimidating heroes in the Avengers.

Tommy’d met a lot of them. He wasn’t _always_ a fan.

Standing still like this reminded Tommy of the fact that he was freaking out, and also that he was still crossed from whatever he’d been doing before the _nownownow_. Not great things to be reminded of, or at least one wasn’t.

“Whoo,” Tommy muttered, barely audible. He opened and closed his eyes in a few different ways before someone knocked their shoulders against his as they pushed past him. “That’s fair,” he added, still not loud enough for them to be able to hear.

Two seconds later, or maybe longer if you thought about it differently, he was standing at David’s apartment – he’d stolen the address from an employee directory months ago, before the whole Patri-not mess – with his elbow up at the wall, his foot knocking against the door because his hands were too busy with each other, scratching and cracking and shaking, no, vibrating, maybe.

The door opened more hesitantly than Tommy would have expected. David usually did things with a lot of confidence, even though he _did_ seem weirdly repressed a lot of the time.

“Hey,” Tommy said, except as he did he watched David blink in slow-motion, so maybe he hadn’t done it right. He repeated it, and then repeated the repeat. It was like he was in seventh grade again, never talking right or thinking right and moving too fast, too weird, too different. Too much.

“Hi,” David said after a moment. He stepped back to let Tommy in. “No one’s seen you since New Year’s,” he added, maybe too shrewdly.

“Busy,” Tommy said, all too aware he was retreating into a one-worded, hyperactive mess of a man. Of course everything was going to catch up with him _now._ Why not! “Parties. Crime. Uhh… I don’t have a. Home? House?”

“Yeah, sorry,” David said, like it was his fault that Tommy’d been kidnapped by a extradimensional creature who they _still_ had no real information on. “I couldn’t really pay your lease and mine at the same time. But I got all your stuff out, if you want it back.”

Tommy blinked.

“F’real?” he asked. “Thought that shit was gone.”

“No, I have it in the closet.” David gestured vague at the other end of the room and walked further into his apartment, Tommy following close behind. “Have you been just wandering around for two weeks? Billy said he hasn’t seen you.”

“It’s easy to be homeless if you have superspeed,” Tommy said, slurred not by alcohol but from… something else, probably. He didn’t add that he’d been doing that on and off since he broke out of juvie, because it wasn’t really important and also David was smart enough to figure that out on his own.

He really was annoyingly smart.

“I guess that makes sense,” David said.

Tommy sped past him and jumped on his couch, pressing himself into a corner and into a ball, arms wrapped around legs, head between shoulders, fingers still shaking enough that they could almost be vibrating.

“Are you okay?” David asked. He stood a ways away from the couch, arms crossed, one eyebrow almost raised but not really in a judging way, so that was fine.

Tommy raised his hands in a sort of shrugging gesture. “Crazy night,” he said. “Weeks. Life. Was out doing fun stuff.”

David didn’t respond for a while. He always took time to talk, like he was thinking about every word, which he probably was. Even without his superpowers, he’d worked hard to be the smartest person in any room.

Tommy tried not to _work_ at anything, when he could.

Finally, David said, “What party did you go to?”

Safe territory. Fun party anecdotes. That was easy, he could stutter over his words and it would be fine because he would be talking about drinking and drunkenness and… stuff like that. The world was moving around him in waves.

“Went to a party in Jersey,” Tommy said. He didn’t say _which_ party in _which_ part of Jersey, but David knew where he used to live. Did he really need to say it? “Someone thought I was a ghost, think they’ve been listening, watching too much Danny Phantom. He has the white hair, dead… dead guy.”

He was shaking again.

“Jersey where you used to live?” David guessed. It probably wasn’t a guess, because David didn’t give him a chance to answer – “Were there people you knew?”

Tommy pointed at him, trying to convey something like _you get it_ or _thank you for not making me spell shit out like Billy ‘raised by a psychiatrist’ Kaplan does._

(“I’m a Jew!” Billy would say, approximately every time Tommy got mad at him for something. “I can’t help it!”)

“Saw people,” Tommy agreed. He was just repeating things. He kept going in and out of it, in control, not in control, looking like an idiot, still looking like an idiot but owning it instead of being the way he was, the way he was, the way–

“What people?” David interrupted.

Tommy, whose legs had began to vibrate fast enough to wear the couch he was sitting on if he wasn’t careful, stopped himself, took a breath, closed his eyes. “People from school,” he said. He didn’t say _the school I blew up_ , but it was implied, he was pretty sure. “Also later my parents. My fake parents? Them.”

Billy never liked it when he called their own sets of parents fake. Billy had a family, a real one, who ate dinner together and talked about family traditions and probably baked real cakes from scratch for birthdays and stuff. Tommy… didn’t.

“Okay,” David said. Was it a prompt?

What was he supposed to say?

“I don’t know what I expected,” Tommy admitted. Maybe he was calmer now. Everything changed so fast, even for him, especially for him.

David sat on the couch next to him.

“I don’t know,” Tommy repeated.

“I get it,” David said.

So they sat.

* * *

 

Being Tommy’s friend was, for lack of a better word, _weird._

David had a lot of words in his vocabulary, in English and over a dozen other languages, but he still didn’t have any that were good for Tommy. He was too complicated for it. He was… well, he was Tommy.

“You always look at me like you’re trying to solve me,” Tommy said, seemingly offhandedly – how much thought he’d actually put into the words was hard to tell. He was on the couch next to David, elbows over the back and feet propped up on a coffee table.

David guessed he’d been staring.

“Sorry,” he said. He didn’t manage to look away.

Tommy shrugged; his shoulders were bare and freckled with moles even darker than his brown skin. David didn’t let himself really take it in, though – since the disaster with Teddy, he’d given up on crushing, especially with Young Avengers.

Not that he thought dating Tommy would be a good idea in the first place.

“I kind of like it,” Tommy said, just when David thought the matter was dropped. “Like… people not knowing me, I guess. It’s easier that way, I think.” he paused, tilted his head like he was thinking about something. “Maybe that’s unhealthy. Billy’s mom would think so.”

It wasn’t the first time Tommy had mentioned Mrs. Kaplan in their time together. David got the impression that he liked her more than he let on – it was just that he wasn’t _comfortable_ around her. Tommy didn’t seem too comfortable around anyone.

“I can understand that,” David said neutrally. Tommy turned his head to look at David, an unimpressed look on his face.

“Shut _up_ ,” he said, not divulging exactly _why_ David should shut up. “You are… so much. So much! Anyway. Do you want to go out tonight?”

“Out where?” David asked, even though all Tommy did at night when he wasn’t sleeping or fighting crime was party at outlandish locations all over the world.

“Get together,” Tommy said, absolutely meaning ‘party’. “Jersey. Springfield. Kind of at the edge of it. At a park.”

“A get together at a park,” David repeated. “How many cans of beer are the city employees going to have to pick up tomorrow morning?”

Tommy shrugged. “Probably a lot,” he admitted. “But, I mean, if it bothers you, I can just speed around and pick ‘em up when everyone’s finished.”

That was a strangely un-Tommylike thing to do. David actually felt touched.

“That’s…” he hesitated. “How are we getting there? You aren’t carrying me.”

“Man, Billy complains way too much about being carried. It isn’t that bad.” Tommy shook his head scornfully. “He’s _totally_ overreacting.”

“Isn’t it a six hour walk anyway?” David asked. “You said superspeed works differently from for you than from others see. Wouldn’t that be six hours of carrying me from your point of view?”

Tommy leaned almost off the couch completely and stared at David for about ten seconds straight.

And then, in a whirl of wind and static, David was on the ground at the edge of a fenced park in what he assumed was Springfield Township, New Jersey. His ears were ringing but beyond that, the high speed travelling had no adverse side effects.

Maybe Wiccan just had really sensitive ears.

“Okay, I guess,” David said. “That works, too.”

Even in the low light they were now in, David could see Tommy grin at him. “We’re gonna have fun,” he said. “ _Or_ you can be boring and bus home. _I’m_ not taking you back.”

“I think that’s almost kidnapping,” David said.

Tommy shrugged. “As you said, six hours.”

David rolled his eyes, but when the world came back into focus Tommy was in the distance, waving at him from further into the park. Sighing, David climbed the fence and started towards him.

When he caught up, Tommy had somehow acquired four different people to talk to, all holding a cigarette or a joint or a alcoholic beverage. It was actually 1:1:2 in that order.

“Give me that,” Tommy said to the girl holding a joint – or at least what David thought was a joint. Tommy didn’t smoke cigarettes. She handed him it and he took a long – maybe too long – drag from it. “Hey, David, do you want some?” he added when he was done.

“Um.” David weighed his options. He’d always been a nerd in school, so nobody invited him to parties, and then in Xavier’s school they usually had more important things to worry about than being Cool™. Usually.

“We’re, like, _not_ pressuring you,” the girl who had previously held the joint said. She was Black, and her hair was in white yarn braids. “I mean, Tommy maybe is, he’s a freak. But _we’re_ not.”

“No, it’s fine,” David said, and took the joint and smoked from it for just a second. “Oh, I hate that,” he said, and gave it back to the girl. She cackled.

“I’m Nia,” she said. “This is the guy you were talking about?” she asked, turning to Tommy.

“Uh, probably,” Tommy said, almost awkwardly. David tried not to be flattered by the fact that he’d been discussed; Tommy talked about anyone at any possible moment. It was possible he was trying to show off the fact that he had friends.

In the following fifteen minutes, David was introduced to over a dozen people, all from Springfield and surrounding areas. Tommy only seemed to know some of them, but they all seemed to know Tommy.

“Well, Tommy’s kind of been the long-standing gossip ‘round our parts for a few years now,” Nia said when he mentioned it. “Y’know, ever since he blew up our school. I mean, not everyone here went there, but it was on the news and stuff. The jailbreak was, too.”

Since it had happened after David lost his powers, he didn’t have all (or really any) of the information on Tommy destroying his school. He knew that most of the Young Avengers didn’t think it was an accident, and that Tommy had been in juvie for six months before they broke him out, but beyond that, the situation was something of a mystery to him.

David _could_ ask, of course. He just didn’t know if Tommy would answer.

“What’chu thinking ‘bout?” Tommy asked, suddenly right next to David.

“You,” David answered, maybe too vaguely. Tommy raised his eyebrows and disappeared again. “Al….right.”

“Don’t mind him,” Nia said. “Last time I saw him at one of these he talked to me for two minutes and zipped _right_ off.”

“Oh, I’m used to that,” David said. “We– you know, I didn’t know he was that open about being a mutant in Springfield. I mean, he’s still kind of on the run from the law.”

“Is he?” Nia asked, surprised. “I guess he did break out. Man, he could get away faster than anyone here if the cops came over here, anyway. Why not live a little?”

“Are you telling David to live a little?” asked Tommy, who was there again.

“I’m saying you’re living,” Nia said. “Also, you just brought this guy here to talk to a bunch of strangers? Shitty host, Thomas.”

Tommy probably rolled his eyes, but between the dark and his speed it was hard to tell. “Tommy,” he corrected. “And I’m not a shitty host. I’m not even hosting this.”

“You’re hosting him,” Nia said. She clapped Tommy on the shoulder as she walked past him. “If you leave him alone too long, one of the rest of us will take him!”

David watched her disappear into the crowd of people that had formed in the past few minutes. “ _Take_ me?” he repeated.

“Oh, don’t mind her,” Tommy said. “You could take ‘em. I could take ‘em. I’ll be right back.” he disappeared for just a second and came back with a lighter and a monkey pipe. “Want?” he asked, offering.

They were alone now, standing at the edge of the party and almost touching the trunk of a tree. David felt more comfortable just with Tommy. Once, he could’ve used his powers to break the ice with people, asking who around him knew French or who had the entirety of the Community episode “Remedial Chaos Theory” memorized. Now he… didn’t have that.

It was still hard to adjust to. He’d gotten _used_ to it.

“Sure,” David said, and took the pipe. They stayed like that for a while, eventually sitting down at the base of the tree and leaning against it.

“Sorry if this is weird,” Tommy said abruptly. His voice was hard, tense, the way it got when he was uncomfortable. “I just wanted us to hang out on my turf. I don’t really think before I do things.”

“You did grab me and run me to New Jersey without warning,” David said. He sounded too harsh to his own ears, but Tommy just shrugged like it was fair – which it was, but still. “It’s fine, though. Are you friends with these people?” he gestured to the crowd, which had dispersed into a few smaller groups. Clouds of smoke billowed up from two of them.

“Eh.” Tommy waved a hand. “Most of them know me. I know a few of them. I went to school with Nia before, well, you know. I saw her at a party here a few months ago, the one where I came to your house after, and we started talking on Snapchat sometimes. I got a lot of these people on Snapchat, I just can’t really remember who’s who.”

David nodded and passed the now empty pipe back to Tommy. Tommy loaded it again and started smoking from it, passing it back before he took something metal out of his jacket pocket – a flask.

David watched him drink from it for a few moments and, just as Tommy took the flask away from his lips, said, “Are you okay?”

Tommy jerked his head around to face David. “What?” he said, obviously and unconvincingly confused. “Man, I’m fine. You– are you okay?”

“Don’t,” David said. Tommy sighed, an angry sound that came all at once and with a visibly clenched fist.

“I’m fine,” he repeated. “I just need to, like, get over myself, you know? I need to figure out my shit.”

David waited.

“I’m a mess,” Tommy said, when it became clear that David was waiting for him to continue. “Like, all the time, don’t know why. I’m gonna crash at some point. Y’know?”

David knew.

“Yeah,” he said quietly.

Tommy messed with his hair. His eyes were closed. “I was bad at life before and now I’m back and I’m even worse,” he said. “I don’t even know why. I don’t remember any of when I was gone, it’s like I wasn’t, even. It only happened for you guys, for me it was just a blink and then I was… you know.”

“You screamed before you disappeared,” David said.

Tommy swallowed audibly. “I don’t remember that,” he said, and maybe he was lying, but he sounded upset enough that David knew to drop it. “Thanks,” he added, for no apparent reason.

“For?”

“Getting me back. However you did that.”

“Oh.” David put his chin on his knee. “Of course.”

Tommy slumped down, his back on the ground now instead of against the tree. “I should get back to partying,” he said. He was biting his lip.

“Sure,” David said. “Bring me back the gossip.”

Tommy stood up, smiled at David, and walked, not ran, to the main party scene.

It was only ten minutes before he returned. 

* * *

Tommy was a wreck. For months, he’d been a person leading up to a wreck – maybe a car crash kind of wreck, or maybe just a nervous breakdown – and now he truly was a wreck of a person.

It was all leading up to this, really.

In the past few days, he’d done several things, all of the same sort. He’d broken his backpack, screamed about it in the middle of the night for a while before realizing someone might think he was either a murderer or a murderee, and then ‘broke’ into Billy’s house to steal an unused one from when he still went to school.

He’d also gotten a job demolishing things. It was a great job. He could just stare and feel and with a twitch of his fingers, things could _explode._ Things exploding was great. Fun. Destruction didn’t bother him.

The first night he slept after getting the job, he dreamed that he messed up while demo-ing a building, and the whole block collapsed, and then, in true dream logic, the police were there before he remembered how to run, and there was no trial this time – he was locked up againagainagain, being watched, probed, handled.

The scientists were all the same. He had their faces all memorized, just in case he saw one in public. If he did see one of them, he would… he didn’t know what he would do. Would he kill them, like he’d wanted to when he was first broken out? Would he become the weapon they’d tried to force him into?

He didn’t scream or cry or rage when he woke up from the dream. It was mostly the same as the dreams he’d been having for years. It was normal.

But he came into work with a weary heart the next day.

Even with work, he didn’t have money for an apartment in New York. It didn’t help that Tommy usually brought his own afflictions to his parties. Not that he didn’t trust the people he partied with, but he definitely didn’t trust the people he partied with.

He wasn’t self-medicating, per say. Tommy had no illusions that alcohol or weed or anything would help him. He just didn’t care.

But anyway – Tommy was a wreck.

When he was alone, Tommy talked to himself. When he was with others, he did the same, but played it like he was actually talking to them. Tommy was sitting in his broken-into home (squatter’s rights or something), and had been for hours, and he hadn’t said a single word.

His skin pricked, jumped at every outside influence. A draft of wind and he was buzzing, so tensely wound his fingers couldn’t even close into fists. His breath barely got to his lungs before he inhaled, exhaled, inhaled again.

He needed to go somewhere. Do something. He had nowhere to go.

Tommy wondered if this was more annoying than Billy’s massive depression spiral. Tommy wasn’t depressed. He was just…

TEXT FROM DAVID ALLEYNE: _[What are you up to?]_

Tommy grabbed his phone and clenched it too tight as he read the message. David was the only person he knew who texted like he was writing an essay. He wasn’t the worst texter Tommy knew, though: Loki was his weed dealer and every text exchange with him make Tommy’s head hurt.

Tommy texted: _[not much jst chillin. u?]_

David: _[Had a really weird conversation with Kate. I think she accidentally adopted some children or something.]_

Tommy: _[ha] [u wanna hang] [billy keeps saying we shld hang out @ my place, dunno how to tell him i dont have one]_

David: _[Still?]_

Like he didn’t know that.

David: _[I can hang.]_

Thank whatever God Tommy didn’t think he believed in. He grabbed a few of his things – beef jerky, a pack of gummy worms, a joint he finished rolling in superspeed – and ran.

David was at the door when Tommy got there.

“Hey,” he said, then frowned at Tommy. “Uh, are you good?” he asked.

“Y-ess?” Tommy said, unsure of why he was being asked. Like, obviously he wasn’t good, but that was in his head. How did _David_ know that?

David let him in. “You aren’t wearing shoes,” he said. “And are those pajama shorts?”

Tommy looked down. His shorts were sheer with pastel sharks on them. “No,” he said, because he didn’t consider anything to be pajamas. He could sleep in anything.

David shrugged. “All right,” he said, moving into the main room and sitting down on his couch. “Do you want to watch something?”

“No,” Tommy said. He thought he might burst into tears right there, like a woman in a movie made in the eighties, but he didn’t, so the refusal just sounded defiant. He added, “Sure,” like that helped any.

David slowly reached and grabbed the remote, not breaking eye contact with Tommy. It was a little unnerving.

“What are you staring at me for?” Tommy asked. He moved to sit beside David, legs up to his chest.

“No reason,” David said. He still didn’t look away. “Are you really okay?”

“You keep asking me that,” Tommy huffed. “Like, every time I see you. Are _you_ okay? Is this some sort of reverse psychology so I make _you_ talk about your feelings? Cuz I talked about mine last month.”

That party had been fun. Tommy still pretended to himself that he had no idea why he’d invited David.

“ _I’m_ not the one who needs people to trick him into opening up,” David said, which, true. Tommy played a dangerous game. “ _I’m_ fine. I see the X-Men’s therapist.”

“The X-Men have a therapist?”

“Yeah, she’s nice.” David turned on the TV. “I’d say I could hook you up, but I don’t think you’d take well to therapy.”

“I feel so seen,” Tommy snarked, and, in a feat of strange courage, he leaned against David’s shoulder and decided to try to talk. “What are we watching? Also, I think I’m falling apart for real, like I think I’m gonna try to make something explode but I’ll mess up and blow my head off instead.”

Tommy actually hadn’t mentioned his new job to David, so maybe that thought needed more context.

David was staring at him still, but in a much different, more alarmed way.

“I’m fine,” Tommy added. He prepared for some sort of speech about Tommy needing to be less of a mess – the same speech he’d gotten since Kindergarten, the first time he had a meltdown in class, threw things, screamed, cried. You know.

He’d gotten better since then.

Instead of any of that, though, David just shifted in his spot and said, “Do you want to move in with me?”

And instead of saying that he could handle himself, that he was working on things, that he was coping with whatever he was dealing with, Tommy said, “Yeah.”

* * *

Living with Tommy was, for lack of a better word, weird.

It wasn’t like David didn’t know why he’d offered his place. Tommy needed something stable for once. Tommy had been homeless for almost six months. Tommy was probably one of David’s best friends.

But God, David had not been prepared for Tommy to walk around the apartment almost entirely naked in the middle of the night. He _should’ve_ been. But he wasn’t.

“Oh,” David said. “Hi.”

“Hey,” Tommy said. He kicked a leg over the side of the couch and landed next to David. “What are you doing up?”

“Working,” David said, gesturing to his laptop. “You?”

“Living,” Tommy said. “I don’t know. I was sleeping before, I just woke up.”

“Dreams?”

“Not any new ones.” Tommy looked away, glanced back at him, and looked away again. David took that to mean he was supposed to ask.

“Which one, then?”

Tommy slumped in his seat. “Juvie,” he said shortly. David wasn’t sure if he was meant to ask any further, but before he could decide, Tommy continued: “I keep dreaming I mess up and I’m back in juvie, ‘cept it’s not juvie ‘cuz I’m not a kid anymore. And they’re doing everything worse ‘cuz I’m not a kid anymore. It’s like… my worst days in there, but every day. That’s what… that’s what I dream about, anyway.”

David was no genius in most social situations, and Tommy was difficult to approach on a good day, but in true philomath fashion, he had to… he had to know.

“What happened in there?”

David regretted asking almost immediately, because he could genuinely _feel_ Tommy’s breathing stop. Not stutter, _stop._ But before David could apologize or take it back, Tommy, though awkwardly, started to answer.

“At first it was just juvie,” he said. “For like a few weeks, it was normal juvie, and I’d been in juvie before, and it was weird, but…” he shrugged. “It was normal. I knew I was going to be there for a while, and it wasn’t going to be good, but it was normal. But then, you know, they started testing me. They had an inhibitor collar on me, you know, so I couldn’t blow stuff up, but sometimes they turned it down a little, tried to test my powers, the speed.

“And, like, I got it, I guess. They wanted to know. But then a few months in, I guess, I didn’t have a calendar or anything, they started, like… trying to explore my powers? They tried to get me to… develop new powers, I guess. So when they were doing that there was, like, some… I don’t know, shocks, electric stuff, I guess. They tested my reaction times to stuff. They– wait.”

Tommy shifted so that he was sitting sideways on the couch. He pointed to a scar on his stomach, surgical in its precision.

David had met surgeons. He knew what every scar and scar placement meant. He willed himself quiet.

“They tested, like, parts of me,” Tommy said, still pointing. He let his hand fall away. “I mean, I wasn’t awake for that or anything, God, but. They did that.”

Tommy had a lot of scars.

“Anyway… that sort of stuff. They wanted to use me...” Tommy trailed off, put a hand to his face and laid down on the couch, head at the armrest. His knees were bent and his toes were tucked under David’s legs. He shook his head. “It was hell. Like, genuinely awful. I thought I’d never get out there. Every time I was alone, I’d try to use my powers to blow the place up, but it never worked. I mean, until Billy and everyone broke me out.”

“I’m glad they did,” David said, too softly to hear.

“I didn’t do it,” Tommy said. “I mean. I did do it, but I didn’t… I didn’t go into school that day and go, ‘I want to blow this place up and kill everyone here’. I didn’t. You know people–– it happened during recess. Most of us were outside, the place–– it exploded. I made it happen, but. I didn’t mean for it to… be like that.”

“Tommy,” David said.

“I know, no, it’s bullshit, I get it.”

“No, I mean–– I believe you.”

Tommy sat up and frowned at him.

“You _believe_ me?” he repeated. “My own brother doesn’t believe me. I mean, he doesn’t really talk about it, but last I heard, none of them thought I was innocent. You’re supposed to be _smart_ , man. Why do _you_ believe me?”

David tried to think about it beyond just _knowing_ he was telling the truth.

“You’re a good person,” he said, finally.

Tommy got up and left.

 

Three days later, when David had all but given up hope of Tommy coming back and ever having an actual discussion with him again, Tommy woke him up in the middle of the night, one knee digging into his stomach.

“Ow,” David said. Tommy relented and sat on the pillow next to David.

“Hey,” Tommy said. “Sorry I was gone for so long. How long was I gone?”

David tried to think, but even for him, thinking just upon waking up was _hard_. “A few days,” he said. “Why–– why did you have to wake me up? What time is it?”

“2 AM,” Tommy said. “And I’m bad at patience, you know this.”

David sighed and forced himself to sit up. “What… okay. Why did you leave? For like three days?”

“I was thinking about something,” Tommy said, absolutely unhelpfully. Before David could groan and try to leave, he added, “Do you have a crush on me?”

“What?” David said incredulously. Too incredulously, in fact, for someone who indeed did have a crush on Tommy.

“Do you have a crush on me?” Tommy repeated, leaning in far too close for someone who apparently did _not_ want David to kiss him. “Cuz I remembered you were talking about New Year’s, when Loki came onto you, and you said good guys were your type, and then you said I was a good person, and I was like, huh.”

David stared, wide-eyed.

“And, you know, you’ve been, like.” Tommy took a breath. “Like, _nice._  Way too nice. You’re good to me. I just thought you were being weird, but…” he calmed down at this, leaned away from David. “Do you?”

And David saw something.

Tommy was biting his tongue, eyes almost worried as they watched David. With a little shock – and more than a little relief – David realized that Tommy _wanted_ him to say yes.

So he did.

* * *

David was sleeping. They talked about themselves and each other and themselves _together_ for a long time, but it was still so early in the morning that most of it would be lost when they awoke.

Tommy didn’t want to sleep. He was still buzzing, differently than before, less panicked, but he still was. He needed help, probably. He was probably going to get it, too, which was a daunting, terrifying task.

He thought about texting Billy, but honestly he wasn’t sure what he would say. Also, Tommy was pretty sure Billy didn’t know he was bi. He had a really weird gaydar, in his own words.

Tommy texted Wanda instead: _[mom] [how are you]_

Wanda replied almost immediately: _[i’m okay. how are you, tommy? <3] _

Tommy let himself smile at the heart emoji. _[im good for now. im weird most of the time. ppl worry about me] [a boy likes me.]_

Wanda: _[OMG.]_

Tommy: _[no capitals on acronyms anymore, mom]_

Wanda: _[sorry. do you like him?]_

Tommy: _[yeah.] [do you think we could talk sometime? about stuff] [we don’t have to]_

Wanda: _[of course] [you should sleep though. also magneto keeps asking for your phone #, don’t give it to him if you see him. he just sends jew memes and mutant revolution memes]_

Tommy: _[making a note to find magneto and give him my number]_

Wanda: _[no!]_

Tommy: _[yes] [im gonna sleep now] [love you]_

Wanda: _[love you.]_

Tommy slept.

**Author's Note:**

> thoughts? questions? please comment. i really need comments anyway it's 3 am so goodnight!


End file.
